On The Journey With SuziCate

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Orange You Glad You Stepped Into The Wilderness?

DirtMan and I just returned from vacation in the mountains. We camped out on the river three nights, hiked three wilderness trails, explored a state park, and enjoyed time with family and friends. As usual we had cameras in tow as well as Wylie. I’ll talk more about the hikes and share those pics later.

Today I just want to share a few bursts of nature’s living sunshine we encountered on the trails. While everything is lush with various shades of green and speckled with confetti of wildflowers, there is nothing as intoxicating as the rushes of orange we encounter along the trails.

Jewelweed, or “touch-me-not”-As a child I used to help my aunt collect these to make an antidote for poison ivy.

Juvenile Eastern (Red-Spotted) Newt

A cluster of orange mushrooms

I dropped my camera a few times along the trails. Fortunately, it did not tumble off any of the mountains, but it did suffer a few minor scratches and dings. This little gadget here, the StrapShot EV1, could have eased my journey and protected my camera. This is a hilarious video about it.

I like the newt! I’ll have to show it to my older son… orange is his favorite color. That video was funny, but being an amateur with the camera, I think I’d feel ridiculous wearing the full gear. But if wearing it would make me able to jump over people, climb up walls and run up an escalator rail, I suppose I could give it a try :)

I swear by jewel weed. After that nasty, early round of poison ivy I had this spring, before the jewel weed was out, my neighbor who makes wonderful natural skin products (wunderbars!), made a jewel weed version for me to have next time I have such an issue.

I had thought it was the flowers we picked for my aunt…I guess I just remember how to identify the plant, but upon reading up on it I found you can just slice the stem of the plant open and apply it to the rash.